Prey aka Predator 5 (Dan Trachtenberg)

pixelburp

I should add that obviously Disney had no faith, given the last attempt only 4 years prior was a total disaster top to bottom. It's not without some justification the Mouse House might have been slow to shove this into cinemas.

silverharp

its cheap when you dont have to market it, this one was a 90m one right? dont they say double it for marketing so now you are up to 150ish . the last Predator movie took in 160m in the cinema , so this film would need to take in north of 300m to breakeven. it just looks like the sums dont add up.

CastorTroy

And how many that watched it here would actually go to the cinema to watch it? Would those who say it would've been better on the big screen have thought that before watching it?

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119471486#Comment_119471486

Any film can ask that, every release is a risk, but plenty of small films do gangbusters on good will and word of mouth: the Jumanji reboot made 300 million off its 50 million budget IIRC on good word of mouth; Everything Everywhere All at Once has done just shy of 100 million - which is insane for what the film is and was made for buttons. Good word of mouth can do a lot of grunt work social media campaigns can't.

We can't know for sure but were the film not so happily cinematic I wouldn't have cared so much it didn't get a wide release. But as I've said before medium sized blockbusters don't get a fair shake anymore.

TheValeyard

I enjoyed to watch it on the TV

Not sure it would have made a good cinema screen event.

But I still enjoyed it

extra gravy

Just watched it, very enjoyable. Not surprised by the Mary Sue crew, it's in line with their usual misogynism. At least they're consistent.

Sonics2k

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119471486#Comment_119471486

Honestly I think that's a very valid point. In retrospect, this would have been a great cinema release, but I say that after seeing the movie.

I, like so many other people, have a deep love for the Predator franchise, despite the majority of the films being pretty damn bad and I was very skeptical of this movie when it was announced. I probably wouldn't have paid to buy tickets to this movie because I had such low expectations of this film and I would have waited for it's streaming release.

murpho999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119471262#Comment_119471262

I wouldn't agree that Disney had no faith. I'd say it was a strategic decision to improve the content of Disney+ and attract subscribers as they are heavily invested in the service and believe in its future.

Netflix and Prime do the same and people don't find it unusual or controversial.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119476820#Comment_119476820

I don't think that they had that level of faith at all, until reviews started coming in

cena

I didn't enjoy it too much. I thought the acting was not that great

murpho999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119477145#Comment_119477145

They know beforehand how good a film is and also do test screenings before release to see how it is being received.

I think Disney know exactly what they are doing.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119465091#Comment_119465091

There is no reason in physics why such a weapon wouldn't. Similar weapons were in use elsewhere in the world at the same time.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119480132#Comment_119480132

They would need to be prepping for a cinema release long in advance. They assumed this would be of equal/lesser quality to the previous few

BruteStock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119480219#Comment_119480219

Example?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119480616#Comment_119480616

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119480616#Comment_119480616

..

conorhal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119466481#Comment_119466481

I'm glad I'm not the only person utterly confused by the concluding confrontation. That was a complete mess of editing and execution.

Throughout the film you had a series of 'circle of life' vignettes with earthly predators becoming prey themselves and I assumed that would lead to something, but no, it was just a lazy, empty metaphor rather than some kind of setup for a thematic pay-off. The theme of 'there's always a bigger predator' would have had a nice pay off if Naru had employed her smarts (and that principle) in the end to lead the predator into the position of prey. I thought the bear from the trailer would be this setup. Naru as prey leading the predator into a trap that puts him into an unexpected confrontation with a grizzly or something along those lines which would give her an advantage. Instead we get one of the dumbest, pulled out of its arse conclusions I've seen in a long time. How in the name of God does a 17th century native American deduce how laser guided homing weapons work?

Also, the predator re-design was just garbage. There was nothing wrong with the original design, which was surprisingly expressive, you get a sense of character out of the OG predator. Prey instead has some 'beefed up' incredibly stupid lumbering Jason Vorhees of a predator that looks like garbage with garbage CGI enhancements.

The mad thing is that the actually had a perfectly good practical predator on set. Sure it still looks stupid, but certainly didn't need bad CGI added. You can check out the practical predator in full roaring and slobbering action here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/woub96/behind_the_scenes_of_predator_in_prey_the/

The predator in this reminds me of the monster from the (gulty pleasure of mine) 90's horror movie 'The relic'

Ush1

Yeah I hate CGI blood effects also. It's so bad looking and it's everywhere. This, new TCM, Stranger Things etc...

Lefty2Guns

I have to say I really enjoyed it and have only ever seen Predator 1 & 2. Would have loved to have watched it in the cinema.

My only issue with the movie was the different languagues. Why not have them speak in the native tongue for the whole film.

johnny_ultimate

While I generally liked the film and how it ended, I do agree the editing of the final action sequence leaves plenty to be desired. While I think a lot of what unfolds works based on what we've previously seen (even Naru figuring out the targeting system, as far-fetched as it is) the rapid and somewhat confused cutting does make it harder to figure out what's going on than should be the case. If I was being generous, I think some of the fast editing does reflect the chaos and tension of that fast-paced fight. But mostly I feel it's just haphazard and confusingly constructed - although sadly I'd make the same complaint about almost all Hollywood action direction these days.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119480964#Comment_119480964

It's cheap, easy to coordinate and presumably safer than exploding caps off peoples' chests. I agree it looks terrible mind you; at least here the violence was quite brief, it looks worse when the camera lingers - as it did with the CGI blood-soaked Day Shift, a Netflix Original I watched the other day.

Ush1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119481356#Comment_119481356

Like they did it for a bloody/broken nose in Stranger Things! That's not expensive or difficult to do with practical effects, and they had no shortage of cash I'm sure. If there's one thing that takes me right out of the 80s nostalgia vibe it's obvious CGI.

Homelander

If you want to see the worst editing ever committed to film, check out Resident Evil: Final Chapter. It's an assault on the senses, some action scenes there's like 5 cuts per second. It's headache inducing and impossible to follow, I thought it couldn't be as bad as people were making out but it was even worse.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482663#Comment_119482663

And for anyone not sure what is being referred to. Full disclosure I had to stop watching after a minute or so; it was too much.

https://youtu.be/O7z6rV8Gdbs

Its almost as bad as Taken 3s infamous fence jump, but a whole movie?

https://youtu.be/gCKhktcbfQM

Tony EH

^

Christ.

Movie making for ADHD people.

Thought Liam handled that fence jump pretty well 😂

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119483381#Comment_119483381

What I can't figure: is that a stylistic choice, or one to hide the joins? As in, is there raw footage of uninterrupted hand-to-hand combat, ruined by excessive editing - or did they just shoot every small moment individually & had to stitch it all together. 'cos it looks like it should be a pretty tense, exciting action set-piece but good luck keeping your lunch down while watching it.

Drumpot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119461414#Comment_119461414

I watched that and it seemed fairly balanced but I still don’t get the issue with the nature of how Naru fought the predator.

Those lads suggested that it would of been better if Naru somehow led her tribe as a general strategically telling the tribe how to defeat it. There’s a tonne of issues that brings up, not least what would Naru of had to do to be considered a worthy strategist in the first place.

Again, they seem to enjoy the movie, so I don’t really get what “female fighting predator is a problem”. No point in dragging this out, but it was an interesting take.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119481232#Comment_119481232

It would've been nice to use the native language alright, but it's an unfortunate reality that - especially in the US - as soon as you bring subtitles in, you lose a significant percentage of the market. If it was a different type of film with a smaller budget they might have, but with a broad-audience-targeting action/thriller I'd say there was a lot of pressure to keep it as easily accessible as possible.

pixelburp

The way Naru occasionally slipped into (what I presumed to have been) Comanche when ordering the dog, or talking of the tribe's initiation rites, was a bit clumsy though. Had no problem buying into the English dialogue, but every time a random little bit of Comanche popped up it jarred a little.

Still think they could have pulled a Hunt for Red October; can't have been that hard to do some cinema trickery.

conorhal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119485741#Comment_119485741

Even when they did the transition from Russian to English in 'The Hunt for Red October' they kept the ruskie accent (with the exception of that famously Russian/Scots commander Ramius). There's bending to suit a mass audience's willingness to engage with a foreign language film and then there's the verisimilitude shattering option of having a 17th Century native speaking in anacronisims while sounding like a California valley girl. It was just... wierd. I haven't been taken out of a movie so fast by an accent since listening to Colin Farrell as 'Alexander de Grate' conferring with Miley 'Well holy God' from Glenroe in Oliver Stones disaster of a biopic.